Directed by Nikolaus Geyrhalter; Austria | 2012 | 75 min.
February 22nd, 6:30pm at McConomy Auditorium, Carnegie Mellon University
Presented in conjunction with the Imperfect Health Exhibition at Miller Gallery.
PITTSBURGH PREMIERE
"Geyrhalter's tripod-mounted, impeccably-framed images capture the interactions of human and machine that have come to define the hospital experience in the 21st century" - The Hollywood Reporter
AWARDS
*Nominated for 2012 East Silver Caravan (Prague) Silver Eye Award
In Danube Hospital, sci-fi and avant-garde meet modern medicine. The setting is Austria’s Donauspital, where birth, death, and gore constitute day-to-day activity. Geyrhalter's exquisite shot-compositions aestheticize each unit of the hospital microcosm. One might forget that what they are seeing is documentary footage—imagery of robot-like transporters and state-of-the-art computer technology echo futuristic, science fiction films of the past century (think 2001: A Space Odyssey, but the spaceship is actually a hospital). Scenes of meat-cutting in the cafeteria and in the cadaver-dissection room evoke the same horror. No unit is granted too much camera time; each is interdependent on the rest, and functions as an integral combination of human and machine. Media screens play a significant role—it is, after all, through television monitors that we view the stitching of internal organs and an eye surgery. Media is not merely a commercial entity or art form—Danube Hospital illustrates its scientific function, its penetration into multiple realms of the contemporary, digitized era.
Danube Hospital will be preceded by a showing of Dr. Paul Goodman's Nurse.As part of Paul Goodman's Faces of Work series, Nurse takes us inside Pittsburgh's very own Mercy Hospital. We are introduced to Cheryl Dinardo, a neo-natal nurse who spends long days and nights treating high-risk infants. Even though she deals daily with situations of life or death, Cheryl remains optimistic and truly devoted to her work.
Be sure to stop by Miller Gallery for one last peek at "Imperfect Health: The Medicalization of Architecture!" Pretzels from Hofbräuhaus and kombucha from Red Star Kombucha prior to the screening.
PURCHASE TICKETS
Feb. 22, Fri.
6:30-8:30pm: Film Screening: Danube Hospital (Donauspital). (Dir. Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Germany, 2012)
$8 General - $5 Seniors + Students.
Purchase tickets here
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Nikolaus Geyrhalter was born in Vienna, Austria in 1972. In 1994, he founded his own production company titled Nikolaus Geyrhalter
Filmproduktion (NGF). His award-winning works include Das Jahr nach Dayton (1997), Pripyat (1999), Elsewhere (2001), and Our
Daily Bread (2005).
